


Somewhere in Brooklyn

by Barkour



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Future Fic, Hands, M/M, Meandering, Oral Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 01:58:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6684664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A casual date night with Alec leads Magnus to slow reminiscing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Somewhere in Brooklyn

A crisp winter, that January. The old year's bones lingered in the shop fronts and the cheap Christmas decorations put out in bins. Night fell. The temperature had dropped throughout the day and the weathermen, those scientific warlocks, predicted snow in the early hours of the morning. 

Alec's breath steamed whitely before him. He walked on the outside of the sidewalk, a habit Magnus could not break of him. At the very least Alec had worn gloves (black as his circa 2011 coat, and his jeans, and his workman's boots).

Magnus wound a finger in his scarf to tug it down so he might speak.

"We could share my scarf," he suggested again. "It is wool..."

"I'm fine," Alec said. His cheeks were wind burnt and his neck was nearly as red. He smiled at Magnus anyway, a careful thing in so public a space as this narrow street. 

Magnus scoffed but tucked his scarf over his mouth. They'd come to a corner, and as Alec looked the whole of the intersection over, Magnus ran two gloved fingers across his bared nape. Alec jumped and clapped a hand to his neck. 

"What was that?"

Magnus only smiled his eyes. He wiggled the offending fingers at Alec. The walk sign flashed green. Magnus swaggered ahead and Alec, still rubbing his neck and looking after Magnus, followed. The crowd parted around them then parted them, and Magnus waited at the other side of the street for Alec to spot him. A mess of black hair showed over much of the tail end of the crowd. 

"Alexander!" He gave a regal wave.

Alec pushed through the stragglers racing to make it before the sign flashed its red hand. He was muttering apologies and nodding his head. An unbearable fondness warmed Magnus' chest. 

"There you are," he greeted Alec. "I thought I'd lost you. And then I'd have to call out the hounds."

Alec smiled. It rumpled his cheek. They resumed their walking, Magnus' shoulder brushing at his shoulder, their steps syncing in that easy rhythm that came to pairs. 

"You did something to my neck."

"What? Me?" Magnus pantomimed shock. "But we're in public, Alexander. How scandalous."

Alec shot him a sidelong look. It was a very dry look. He said, "Well, thanks. But you didn't have to."

"Mm. I wanted to."

Alec's smile shied. His eyelashes fell over his eyes; he glanced at the sidewalk. This shop cast a hazy yellow light across the cement. The next showed brighter.

"I know," said Alec.

Magnus said, "Turn up here. And then it's the first on the right." 

Alec nodded. He scanned the foot traffic, thicker here than before. A stranger rushing by pushed Magnus nearer to Alec. Nearer, no: he leaned heavily against Alec. 

"Stick your foot in the gutter," Magnus snipped under his breath. 

"Are you all right?" 

Alec caught Magnus in his arm. All his mind was for Magnus. The delicate threads of green in Alec's eyes were a shadow lost in the brown. Magnus twitched his fingers at his side. Alec's hip was a jean-roughed suggestion at the back of his hand.

"Oh, Alexander," he said, "as if some petty brute could upset my evening."

The rude stranger yelped. A crashing sound followed. Someone said, "The curb's right there, moron." Alec glanced back then at Magnus. His eyebrow arched. Magnus lifted his chin with dignity.

"After all," said Magnus, "I have such a handsome escort."

Alec smiled then, as was his custom, squashed it into solemnity. 

"Just... watch where you're going," Alec said gruffly. The little look he shot at Magnus through his eyelashes (absurdly thick, as all Alec's hair was thick) belied this.

Magnus huffed a merry laugh indeed. Then Alec did something that did almost knock Magnus off his feet. He swayed to brush their arms together and when he did this, he slipped his hand into Magnus' hand.

Magnus stared at Alec. The red of Alec's cheeks splotched unattractively around the wind burn. Alec cleared his throat. He lifted Magnus' hand, wrapped up in his fingers, and tucked their hands together into his coat pocket.

In perhaps lower voice than the situation necessitated Magnus said, "Ale _xan_ der."

"Turn up here?" Alec asked quickly.

"I'll follow your lead," said Magnus, in that same voice.

Alec said, "On the right? Right? The second one?" He looked furtively at Magnus. 

Magnus was still smiling. 

"The first one," he said. "I got us a very private booth."

Alec hunched his shoulders. The wind stirred the hair at his ears. He smiled too. In Alec's pocket, Magnus furled his fingers. He stroked at Alec's dear palm with his thumb. Alec shifted his grip and wound his fingers with Magnus'. The glass front of the little Chechen restaurant allowed a cheery light to illuminate the sidewalk and the street and Alec and Magnus on the corner together, stopped a moment beneath the street light. Alec tipped his head back. 

"It's supposed to snow later."

Alec said, "It's snowing now."

Magnus squinted through the hazy light the street lamp put out. He saw a tiny ghostly movement, another. Soft flakes slipped from their distant, dark clouds. 

"You're right," said Magnus. "Maybe you should report the weather."

Alec laughed. The work of it made his severe face bright. He lowered his head and his hair was a black mess on his brow. The light of the street and the light of the restaurant limned distinct strands of his hair.

An uncoiling hand slid over Magnus' heart. It was a dark thing moved in him, not evil but powerful. I want to keep you forever, he thought of Alec. He held Alec's hand lightly and did not squeeze it.

"Let's go in," he said. Alec ducked his head to bid Magnus lead.

A bell over the door sang out. A plump older woman in plain dress and a white apron greeted them in a Chechnyan's english. Alec let Magnus slip his hand out of the pocket. Magnus glanced back at the window. The flurries showed in the street light, fat, pretty fractals descending to catch on the sidewalk. Another winter in Brooklyn, and how many yet to come?

Alec said, "Magnus," and he returned his attention. Alec gestured to the corner booth. Magnus mustered a smile.

"After you," he said. 

Alec shook his head but went before Magnus.

*

To begin: _to beram_ , with an assortment of crisp and neatly cut vegetables to dip in the sour cream sauce.

Magnus set his gloves on top of each other on top of his coat, on the seat beside him. Alec stuffed his in a coat pocket. He did not shuck his coat. 

"Aren't you warm?"

Alec shook his head and popped a radish slice in his mouth.

Magnus tutted. "Showing off your cold hardiness?"

Alec though this over and grinned. He'd radish stuck between his teeth. Magnus said, "Swallow," and bit the end off a long stalk of asparagus.

Laughing to himself, Alec swallowed. He gestured with a finger. "You've got..."

Magnus swiped at his mouth. "Gone?"

"No, it's--"

He swiped at the other side with his thumb.

Alec sighed, half a grumble. "Not there." He rose some from his seat to lean across the table.

Alec's thumb proved somewhat rougher on Magnus' lips. He'd particular calluses from the bow, a little hard lump on the inside knuckle of the first and second fingers. These brushed Magnus' chin in passing. Alec made a satisfied grunt and sat down. He popped his thumb then each finger in his mouth.

Magnus said, "Wuh," and huffed.

Alec, hunched again and reaching for another radish, paused with the offending hand poised in the air. 

"What?"

"How?" asked Magnus. "How are you like this?"

Alec glanced to the other booths, the tables occupied. "Did I do something?"

Magnus stared at Alec. Alec bit into the radish. His eyes flitted. A muscle in his cheek worked. He chewed in ignorant silence for another moment, and then Alec's eyes widened and he coughed around the radish. Magnus slid a glass of water to him.

He drank deeply. "You're laughing." Wiping at his mouth with his sleeve, Alec set the glass down.

"I'm not laughing."

"Your eyes are doing that thing."

"Please," said Magnus. "As if I'd let my face fall in public." He rounded his eyes, brown in this warm light.

Alec looked exasperated. "Not that." He threw out three fingers then pressed them to his cheek as if they were whiskers. Magnus was delighted. 

"I once spent a year as a cat in Morocco," Magnus said. "This was, oh, 1829? Ah, that was a good year." He pulled his mouth. "But I still won't eat fish."

Alec chewed at an asparagus stick then ducked his head. A side-raked smile complemented the lashes black on his tanned cheeks. 

"They don't serve fish here?"

"Fortunately Chechnya is land-locked," said Magnus, "and they boil everything. Have you ever had boiled fish?" He shuddered.

Alec peeked up. He stuck the asparagus between his teeth and said, "I could eat it."

"You'd eat boiled fish."

"Can't be worse than Institute rations," said Alec.

"What do you know about rations?"

"Soldiers learn from order and deprivation," Alec said seriously. He looked Magnus over. "What about you?"

Magnus squinted at this sudden faint hint of cockiness in Alec. 

"I know a thing or two about deprivation."

"Like what?"

The memory struck at him with a depth he did not expect. A harsh winter on the steppes. The goat had died, too old to live through the frozen night. His mother Bóng-chhî had skinned it, her husband made jerky of it, and Magnus had a half portion to his brother's full portion. 

Alec said, "Magnus."

Magnus blinked rapidly and refocused. Alec's heavy brow knit. Magnus smiled and said, "Maybe I'll boil fish for you. If you play your hand right."

Alec snorted. His brow did not ease, and he continued to study Magnus. Magnus made a production of drinking his own water. The waitress came then laden with the layered onion- and tvorog-mixed dough pancakes to share, and boiled lamb coated with garlic noodles for Alec too.

"Have you been to Morocco?" Magnus asked as they tore into the sticky, moist cake. 

"Once," Alec said. 

"Really! For how long? Did you see the Saadian tombs?"

"Well," Alec said, "it was for about three minutes. Portal hopping."

Magnus ahhhhed. "After pressing some other poor warlock to help you with those evil, evil demons."

"It was just a job," said Alec. He sucked his fingers clean. "If I'd known you, I would have asked."

"You couldn't afford my base fee."

"Sure I could." The moment's smugness had lingered. "You'd give me a discount."

Magnus sucked his own thumb clean. His eyes lidded.

"And why, Alexander, why would I do that?"

Alec looked skyward for inspiration. "Because... you think... I'm cute." He flushed at this.

Magnus took up his knife, cut a significant portion of the pancakes out, and picked this up to put on Alec's plate. 

"Oh, Alexander, I don't think you're cute," he said. "I know you're cute. And obscenely handsome, too. Not to mention your charming personality, your unbelievably attractive loyal streak, how you--"

Alec broke a piece of pancake off and stuffed it in Magnus' mouth. His ears were unevenly red. 

"Okay," he said.

Magnus, pleased, sat back to chew. "Mm-mm."

"And anyway," said Alec. "You're wrong."

"I'm never wrong," said Magnus. "You know that."

"You're the loyal one."

Magnus said, "I will not be goaded into a fight over who's the better man, when we both know it's--"

You, he meant to tease. But Alec, his gaze steadfastly fixed on their hands, had reached across the table to lay his hand over Magnus' hand. Magnus, too, looked to their hands again. Alec brushed his thumb over Magnus' knuckles. Magnus looked at him.

Very softly he said, "Alexander."

"It's okay," Alec said. "Right?"

Magnus turned his hand over. Alec, stricken if the stiffness that came to his face proved anything, made to pull away but Magnus only caught him by the wrist. Their palms fitted.

"Of course it is," said Magnus. He curled his fingers about Alec's wrist. "Although it will make eating more of a challenge."

"I, uh." Alec looked at him. That sweetness was on him again. That sweetness was ever on Alec. It astounded Magnus that no one else saw it under the gruff and hard teeth. "I like challenges."

His thumb was at the outside knob of Alec's wrist. Alec's thumb was at the outside knob of Magnus' wrist. In this manner were they tied.

"Lucky for you," said Magnus, "I do too."

Alec's dear, long cheeks creased.

*

And to the streets again where the snow fell in befuddled and twisting lines. The wind beat at their backs. Alec was laughing. Why? It didn't matter. At Magnus' elbow, Alec's hand sat fingers curled about the joint. Magnus wore his scarf undone. He smiled openly at Alec, and Alec said, a laugh in his low-made voice, "What?"

"Nothing," said Magnus.

"It's not nothing." 

They stopped at the intersection where they'd lost sight of one another. Alec's breath steamed. So too did Magnus'. The white clouds mingled. The signs showed red; no crossing. 

"It's always something."

"What are you saying? That I'm dramatic?"

"You're dramatic."

"Of course I am, darling," said Magnus, "someone has to remember the theatre and I can't trust the Institute to it."

"I've been to the theatre."

"When have you been to the theatre?"

The walk sign lit. The snow flurried fastly now as they crossed the whitening street. Alec's hand slipped from Magnus' elbow down his arm to clasp his hand. 

"Izzy was in Mary Poppins."

"Ahhh," said Magnus, "an off-Broadway production."

"It was in the living room for our parents. She was six," he added.

"And who were you?" Enchanting to imagine an eight year old Alec doing his turns upon a child's stage. "Alexander," he prompted.

He muttered, "It was a one person performance."

Magnus laughed. He laughed most of the block. Alec grinned foolishly and Magnus swung their hands and Alec didn't check to see if anyone looked at them. 

His ears were red again. At the next intersection, Magnus tugged his scarf one-handed from his neck and popped on his toes to cast it in a loop around Alec's bared neck. Alec's hand flew to his throat. Magnus tossed one end around again, to secure it. 

"Magnus--"

"There," said Magnus. "And look! A little color suits you. You don't look so much like a funeral director."

Alec rolled his eyes. "I don't need it. You should--"

"Never spurn a warlock's charity," Magnus said. "I might put a hex on your shoulders."

Alec pushed his hand into the scarf, guiding it over his mouth. The dark corners of his eyes showed soft. 

"We're almost to my loft anyway." Magnus swayed nearer to him. "And if you put your arm around me, I'd be very toasty."

Alec glanced at him. "You're already hot."

Magnus said, "Alexander! You scoundrel! Tell me more."

He burrowed deeper into the scarf. "Okay, you can quit. It wasn't good." 

"It was wonderful," said Magnus. "I should show you my collection of Bazooka Joe comics."

"What's Bazooka Joe?" 

"How can you know what Mary Poppins is but not Bazooka Joe?"

Alec looked at him. "Mary Poppins is real."

"Well, she doesn't go by that name anymore," Magnus said. "Oh, Alexander. I have so much to teach you. You mean you've never had Bazooka Joe?"

"Who is Bazooka Joe?" asked Alec loudly.

Outside the brownstone, Magnus turned on Alec and pulsed the fingers of his free hand in the air. Snow had begun to stick on the sidewalk and the steps. Thin lights refracted from the stones set in his rings.

"Follow me and all questions will be answered."

*

Alec did not appreciate Bazooka Joe's humor or his formula. He spat the gum out in the kitchen trash.

"You like that?"

Magnus chomped loudly another few goes then he too spat the gum out. Alec was pulling his teeth over his tongue.

"No," Magnus said, "but it makes me feel American. Wine?"

"I'll get the glasses."

"You, sit. You're my guest."

Alec ignored him and crossed back into the common room to loot the small bar for the fat-bellied flutes Magnus kept on the tall shelf, the one he couldn't reach without cheating. He sucked enviously at his teeth. Damn those four inches. He turned on his heel and selected a wine from the cupboard.

"The de la Romanee-Conti," he said to the shadows. "1927."

Ah, 1927. A fine year, all told. Still bleaked perhaps in Camille's absence, yet there had been friends, good friends. Bright parties, sweet wines, that week in the Argentine.

A pale and bony hand reached out of the cupboard to hand him the bottle. He took the bottle and thanked the hand, then he closed the cupboard. 

Magnus was studying the label as he at last followed Alec into the common room.

"What's funny?"

Magnus stirred from reminiscences of friends long lost to their mortalities: of a time, like so many other times, left where it had once been called present. 

"Nothing," he said. He stopped beside Alec and smiled at the bottle. His thumb rubbed the long neck. "Just memories."

Alec waited, watching him with that patient way he had. Magnus drew in a long breath and let it go easily. He held his hand out to Alec for the cork puller, a wicked silver curl topped with an art deco swan. Another memory.

"I enjoyed 1927," Magnus said. He turned his smile on Alec. "I'd like to share it with you."

Alec's black lashes fell and rose in agreement. He held a glass in each hand, his shirt sleeves rucked up his forearms, each bell cradled between fingers and balanced thumb. Magnus pulled the cork and set the wine to air. 

Behind him, Alec reached around his shoulder to set one glass beside the bottle. They did not touch, but Magnus half-turned his head to savor the warmth that Alec gave him. Alec reached around the other shoulder to set the second glass down. Magnus felt his own smile move like a cat flexing a claw.

"Let me put some music on," Magnus said.

"Do we need it?" asked Alec, in the manner that meant, all right.

Magnus only hummed and left Alec to decide when the wine was ready to pour. He had to learn some time. 

The victrola was nominally set dressing, left on a high cherrywood dresser in the common room to tantalize more modern customers. Magnus testing the needle, the arm, the great brass bell. Something of it still spoke to him. What a marvel it had seemed at the time, to listen to music performed ages ago on a machine of wood and metal. He tugged the dresser drawer open to rifle through the records. 

Alec made a decisive noise and began to pour. Magnus tugged a Ruth Etting out. He brushed his fingers across it, remembering: what did he remember? A party, a dance, a friend. None of these things echoed in the moment. He put the record on and began to wind the machine. 

A warm, strong hand brushing his arm. Alec offered the glass to him. Magnus took it and offered a toast: Alec, half-smiling, met him halfway. The lever continued to wind without Magnus' hand. A benefit of his talents. 

Alec drank deeply of the wine. 

"You're supposed to breathe it in first."

He tipped his nose into the glass and sniffed. Alec made a face. "It just smells like wine."

Magnus laughed. "Oh, now I just want to spoil you with the really rich stuff."

"Will I notice the difference?" Alec took another, smaller mouthful. 

"Hm, I'm not sure you have the palate," said Magnus, "but that's the fun part for me."

Alec looked at him over the glass. "That I can't appreciate it?"

The lever clicked. The machine was ready. Magnus loosed the coil.

"It humbles me," Magnus told him. He took a sip of his own glass of wine. His eyes closed at it. "You are very much of the present."

Alec, his pensive thinker, was quiet. Magnus opened his eyes, and Alec was looking at him. He looked and Magnus wondered what he saw. Don't think of the end of it, Magnus thought to Alec. Alec nursed his glass but did not drink again.

The first strings played. Magnus swayed light on his toes with his fingers fanned about the glass. 

"After you've gone," sang Ruth, "and left me crying, after you've gone..."

He set his drink aside beside the victrola and held both hands out to Alec.

"Dance with me, Alexander."

"I thought you wanted a drink."

Magnus stepped into the circle of Alec's arms to slide his hands up either side of his chest.

"I want you to dance with me."

Alec put his glass on the dresser and let Magnus pull him to the center of the room. The lights flickered as if candles. Magnus bound the fingers of one hand with the fingers of Alec's mirrored hand. He slipped his hand up Alec's side again as Alec hesitated and then folded his arm about Magnus' back. 

Magnus smiled up at him. They moved slowly back and forth, not dancing so much as embracing. The knots in Alec's shoulders eased. 

"You'd be a wonderful dancer."

"Not a lot of opportunities."

"I could teach you," Magnus said. "The foxtrot. The continental. You would've been a sight to see in 1927."

Alec snorted all through his throat.

"Someday, when you grow lonely," Ms Etting sang, "your heart will break like mine and you'll want me only."

"You don't believe me?"

"I wasn't alive then," Alec told him. "So it doesn't matter."

Magnus looked after a moment from Alec's face to his runed throat. He imagined it. A silliness. Would he have remembered his heart, or was Camille still too near?

"It might have," he said.

"I'm here now," Alec said. 

Magnus sighed and leaned forward to press his cheek to Alec's breast. Alec stiffened. 

"Sometimes," he said, "you surprise me." Magnus laughed a little. "You don't even know you're doing it."

"What am I doing?"

They swayed together under the shivering lights. As they turned slowly, Alec's arm moving more firmly about Magnus, Magnus looked to the windows. The night was black for a change though New York's lights still shone, and the snow came now in great white gusts to swallow the old year and the new year too.

"After you've gone, and left me crying, after you've gone, there's no denying." 

Magnus mouthed along to the words. He smiled and lifted his head.

"Making me want to do terrible things, Alexander," he told Alec. "Absolutely terrible things."

"Like dancing?"

"This isn't dancing. This is swaying."

Alec chewed on his lip. He darted a smile, a rake of a smile. 

"I like it."

"You are catching on," said Magnus.

The record faded into static.

"What's the next song?"

"It's the b-side," Magnus said, "and I don't care for 'Mon Homme.'"

It was the steadiness of Alec's embrace that did it to Magnus. The long, lazy stroke of his thumb along Magnus' thumb. Or it was the strange timelessness of the moment, that feeling of existing outside the whole of his life as though the world was only the snow and the loft and the whirr as the record clicked along and Alec's hazel eyes on him.

"My mother hated me," Magnus said. It did not hurt him much to say it. It was the truth. "My father, well. He wasn't really my father. We were poor and we didn't have much to eat. So what there was went to my brother before it went to me."

Alec frowned. They were swaying yet. Magnus rubbed at Alec's side.

"It was a very long time ago, Alexander," he said. "I don't even remember much of it." This was a lie. "I was born on the steppes of China, so when I left I had a whole empire to explore. The world's oldest empire. It wasn't hard to forget them." 

His tongue stuttered on the space between the forgetting and his family.

Alec had stopped moving. His hand shifted around Magnus' hand. Magnus looked searchingly at him. He tried a smile for Alec.

"So I know something," he said, "about being the unfavored son."

Alec unwound his arm from Magnus. Magnus tried to think of something cheery and bright to say so that they could move on from this horrid melancholy. Then Alec brought the hand he held to his mouth and began to kiss each knuckle in turn.

Magnus caught his breath in his chest. Alec had turned his face down, away from him. Don't apologize for it, Magnus thought to say; none of it was your fault. But this was what Alec wanted to give him.

His lips were soft on Magnus' skin. He kissed each knuckle and then, turning Magnus' hand over, the inside of each knuckle not with reverence but a fearsome intensity. Like he meant to make himself a wall for Magnus.

He turned Magnus' hand over again and studied it at length and then he bent again, to kiss first the thin, silver serpent shaped to Magnus' little finger. Magnus swallowed the breath that rose at this. His fingers ticked. The swell of the heel of Alec's palm stilled his movements. 

With the same fastidious mind did Alec move to the gold ring at the second knuckle of the ring finger. The three bands, each bearing a discrete small stone, of the middle finger. The cuff at the end of the first finger. Then, at the very last, Alec raised his head to consider the thumb, and he kissed the bared knuckles of this once more. His lips parted on this epilogue. He did not press teeth; his teeth were there. 

A shudder clenched Magnus' heart. It worked through all of him. Alec smiled to Magnus' hand as though pleased, and Magnus grabbed Alec by his sleeves and set his toe on Alec's toe and pushed off this to kiss him harshly.

Did Alec stutter? Did he turn shy? No. Alec pulled away not of surprise but from the force of it. His eyelids fluttered. Magnus altered the angle to leave a gentler kiss, and Alec's mouth fell open readily to him. 

The wind rattled at the windows. Lucky he'd brought the herb garden inside that morning. The plants looked on as Alec pulled at the carved dragon's ivory buttons of Magnus' shirt and Magnus fought with Alec's belt, plain metal silver-coated.

"Couch?" Magnus asked breathlessly.

Alec bit a ruthless trail down his neck, unprofessional bites followed with brief and tender kisses. 

"Bed," said Magnus. He left off Alec's belt to claw at his black button-up, dragging it up from his trousers. 

Three buttons, that was what Alec had managed, only two of them seated together. He moved suddenly and Magnus startled as Alec hefted Magnus up in his arms. 

"Well!" said Magnus. "Well, well, well!"

Alec, flushed in the face and his black hair a mess, quirked half a smile. Unable to resist, devoid of resistance, assuredly resist-less, Magnus slid a hand around Alec's nape and another hand in his hair and kissed him openly, wetly. Alec staggered twice into the wall and took the few steps heavily, but they made it, and they fell together onto Magnus' bed. 

Magnus unwound his hands from about Alec's head. Three fingers grazed Alec's cheek. Alec caught Magnus' wrist and held that hand there to suck at his fingers, and so Magnus fumbled one-handed with Alec's belt. He hated the damned thing. Overly plain for a man so striking as Alec and a disowned bastard son of a disgraced third level barrister puzzle that evaded solving. Alec moaned as he tongued at the rings of Magnus' middle and first fingers. It was Magnus who moaned when Alec bit at the delicate skin webbed at the base between the two fingers.

Alec was crouched over him on his knees, so Magnus hooked a leg behind Alec's thigh to pull him closer. As he did so he rose himself to begin laying kisses, wonderful frantic kisses, along Alec's dark jaw and his long and muscled and black-marked throat. Alec's tongue passed roughly between Magnus' fingers, laving without practice at the rings and knuckles and the skin at the hand where the fingers started, then biting at Magnus again. His lips, full, were red and slick, and his teeth were hard as stone even as he gentled his touches. Alexander, Alexander, so strong and so very careful.

A loud and horrible groan ripped out of Magnus. His hips jerked the once. Alec looked up from Magnus' hand. His lips were pulled out. He looked at all of Magnus' face, his eyes, made dark, flickering.

"Alexander," said Magnus breathlessly, "that was very filthy."

Something like wonder tugged at Alec's mouth, but the smile that crumpled his cheeks was almost smug.

"You liked that," he said.

Magnus flapped his bit and sticky fingers. Alec still held his wrist. 

"What gave it away?"

Evidently delighted by his own newfound ability to fluster Magnus by fellating his hand, Alec bent and licked Magnus' palm from the hell at his wrist to the end of the middle finger. That was enough for Magnus. He grabbed Alec's belt buckle, broke the buckle from the belt, and ripped the belt free of the loops.

Alec said, "Hey!" and Magnus twisted his leg around Alec's leg and used this as leverage to roll them over so Magnus was on top. 

Alexander's black hair was a wild little puff on the satin sheets. This week's color was green. It fitted Alec's eyes nicely but then most colors did if he'd only diversify his wardrobe. Magnus admired him a moment. Then Alec curled a finger against Magnus' wrist.

"That's enough of the clothes."

Alec leaned up and missed Magnus' mouth for his nose. That was indeed enough for the clothes. He didn't miss on the second go, even as Magnus ripped buttons and pulled clothes free with sparking hands to toss elsewhere in the loft. In the morning they might find Alec's battered jeans cast over the victrola.

Much could be said of removing clothing in the traditional way. Magnus very much enjoyed the sensual work of this. But an urgency had caught him, as it now caught Alec, peppering Magnus' face with open, slick kisses. Take this, have this, keep this. Everything will slip from you. Remember it. 

He ran the back of his hand down Alec's face and Alec turned, a certain cockiness rising in him, to give attentions to Magnus' fingers. The scrape of Alec's teeth over the calluses at the tips or on the knuckles: Magnus shuddered with it. He descended along Alec's bared body. Muscled, yes, without the shallow definition Magnus worked for on his own body; and blackly haired across his swelling, falling chest and down the length of his strong abdomen. 

The hairs yet thinly sweated tickled at Magnus' lips. Alec's skin was not silky but not rough. A kiss to the flesh beneath his nipple. Another kiss for a rumpled line of scar tissue, etched along the curve of a rib. He was delicate in his touches. Lips turned out that the softer, sleeker skin at the inside might cling to Alec. Magnus licked salt from Alec's heavy breast. A second taste, lower down on the far side. He'd remember all of it.

Alec's breath came in shuddering hefts. Lower still, as Alec panted and his fingers flexed in the sheets. Wrinkles tightened the satin. Here, then, between his muscular legs the hair grew thick and black and curly, and his cock with its brown head rose from this. 

Alec said, "Magnus," and in his turn he shuddered, and he reached to touch Magnus' brow. So Magnus caught Alec's wrist and kissed his palm then folded this hand gently flat to Alec's taut and haired belly.

"Please," said Magnus, "let me. I want to do this, Alexander." He slipped his thumb between Alec's lips, and Alec nipped him. Magnus' own cock ached heavily where it pressed into the satin. 

Was it always so between them? No. He was careful with Alec most days, and though they had fucked before, non-penetrative, and even did so regularly now, the work of it was filled with talking and sometimes laughter. Alec laughed with Magnus these days, as though the coils of his frightened youth were easing. 

Magnus gave Alec only a few perfunctory teases with his tongue before he took Alec into his mouth. Need was a deep and terrible thing. He pressed the curled top of his tongue to the slit even as he hollowed his cheeks. Alec stuttered his hips and Magnus laid his free hand on Alec's gut to make him flat. 

The pulling on Magnus' thumb turned sloppy. The other thumb curled, the black-painted nail fitted to Alec's deep-set belly button. Magnus rolled his tongue about Alec's length, a swirl not to tease but to draw the flavor from him.

A tragedy oft remarked upon by Magnus: the circumcision of Alexander. He spared no remarks now. Why should it be so that at this hour on this evening as snow gathered in the city and the wind shivered and lights in some places went dark, that Magnus could not garner wit?

Alec groaned around Magnus' thumb and bit his teeth in at the base. Magnus pulled wetly off his cock to lick the vein at the underside, and Alec's long back arched as he bit again at Magnus' thumb. Remember, then, the taste of him. Pre-come salted and bitter, the flesh sweaty. Magnus dropped his hand quickly from Alec's clenching abdominals to cup instead his balls. What is the feel of him under your fingers, your tongue? 

Grasping the shaft, Magnus lingered to toy at the slit. He pumped, Alec's skin spit-slicked, squeezing and then twisting his hand. Another clear gush of pre-come, another, spilled across Magnus' tongue. 

Alec's tongue was hot and rough on Magnus' thumb. His teeth bit; he scraped. A hand fumbled at Magnus' shoulder and Magnus gave up pumping clasp the wrist, the palm, to wind his fingers with Alec's.

He wanted to come. He wanted to come on Alec or in him. He wanted Alec to fuck him in the common room on the floor in front of the floor to ceiling windows, a brutal fucking at odds with Alec's carefulness that left Magnus with his make-up streaked across his face and bruises marked blue-black on hips, thighs, the small of his back, his shoulders. For Alec to draw Magnus' thighs open and hold them hurtfully apart so that Magnus would see how his toes curled as Alec made certain that Magnus would never forget.

And so Magnus gave up gentleness. He ripped his thumb from Alec's mouth and grabbed Alec's cock with that hand. Dark marks indented his thumb where Alec had set his teeth. Alec lifted his head some to look bewildered and blasted at Magnus. His face and neck were red-splotched; his black hair stuck to his brow, his temples.

He croaked: "Magnus."

Magnus pumped Alec once, viciously, and Alec dropped his head and moaned loudly. His nipples had tightened. His balls did too beneath Magnus' wrist.

Magnus licked at his own lips. His skin was fever-hot. His tongue was dry. 

"Look at me, Alexander," he said. "I want you to look at me. I want to hear you."

Alec shook his head. The movement reverberated through his legs. Magnus rose and crawled nearer to him. It was only a slight shift. Magnus swiped his tongue through the crease of Alec's hip, licking away the sweat that had gathered to glisten there. 

"Please," Magnus said. He jerked Alec roughly. More pre-come spat over his hand, his ringed fingers. His own voice came hoarse. "Let me hear you, Alexander."

"I-- Magnus," he said, "please, I just-- I want--" 

Another groan as Magnus dipped to scrape teeth along his sac then tongued. Magnus rubbed his fingernail against the stickened slit of Alec's cock. Alec panted. His hips were jerking, small and indelicate movements that distorted the satin. Magnus gripped Alec's hand tightly.

"Tell me," Magnus said. It came out like begging. "Please. Look at me."

Alec said, "I _can't_ ," even as he lifted his head again to look down his own body at Magnus, crouched between his legs with a hand on his dick and his tongue coiled about the head.

"You can do so much," Magnus told him. His lips stung. The corners were stretched. "Anything that you want, Alexander, anything--"

"I just want--" Alec's eyes were dark, pupils so very black, the brown of his eyes a thinned ring. His fingers spasmed about Alec's hand. "I-- I want-- God! Fuck! Magnus, your hand--"

Magnus smiled and pumped harder. "Is this what you want?" he asked Alec. "Do you want my hand? Do you want my mouth on you? Oh, Alexander," he said, lipping at the straining shaft, "you don't even know-- Oh, you're irresistible."

Alec tightened his legs along Magnus' sides, squeezing him in. The slippery texture of the satin gave Magnus no relief. His cock leaked helplessly on his sheets. His gut burned. Toes, curled and flexing at Magnus' hips. The undersides of Alec's feet were rough.

"Alexander," Magnus said to Alec's cock in between long and greedy pulls with mouth, tongue, cheeks, teeth a suggestion on the flesh. "Alexander. Anything you want. I can give you anything you want."

"Magnus," Alec choked. "Magnus. Magnus! God!"

That tether of control snapped. Alec bucked a sudden unrestrained arrhythmia. Magnus loosened his throat after the first unexpected thrust nearly made him gag, and on the second thrust Magnus swallowed all of that fat and burning cock into his throat. He wanted it; he wanted Alec; he wanted, selfishly, everything of Alexander and he meant for it to be his. 

Alec was groaning. He was stuttering Magnus' name. He said something sweet, something horribly sweet, a word like love in the midst of it. Magnus grabbed Alec's other hand and held their arms out together and slipped, lower lip turned out, up the wondrous length of Alec's dick, and Alec thrust into the air, his cock smearing where it grazed Magnus' chin.

"Whatever you want," Magnus told him through a wrecked throat, "anything you want, Alexander." It was a cheat, to use magic then to hold Alec's hips down. But he wanted to kiss him and so he did, lips gentle and chaste at the slick head of Alec's cock.

That was what did it for Alec. He groaned out, "Magnus," and the first hot and thick spurt of come splattered on Magnus' lips; the second whited his teeth; the third, longest of all, and the fourth, Magnus took on his tongue and in his mouth. The bitter taste flooded his senses. Alec's hands spasmed in Magnus' grip. Magnus held him there to suck a fifth, weak stream of semen from his cock; and when he released Alec's hips, he still held Alec in his mouth. Alec collapsed to the bed. Magnus withdrew only to nuzzle at his slow-softening prick. His heart beat in his chest heavy as a pestle to mortar.

Alec raised a hand. Magnus' hand came with it.

"Magnus," he said. "Magnus... Here. Come here."

Magnus came up from the satin, up from between Alec's now trembling and lax legs. The knees tipped out, the one near parallel to the bed, the other tipped yet at the top of the headboard. Magnus' cock bobbed, weighted with his wanting.

Alec was sleep-eyed and red, hair flattened with sweat and chest like a bellows now beginning to settle. He smiled at Magnus. There was no artfulness to his smile. It was only happiness. He drew a hand free of Magnus' and brushed his fingers along Magnus' straining cock, and with a low and startled cry Magnus came across Alec's chest.

A great, freeing whiteness seized him. Pleasure, that dear old friend, clutched at Magnus. He fell bowed over Alec. His hips jerked some last, few thrusts. His cockhead slicked through the come on Alec's belly. 

Alec muttered, "Magnus," and rose in a curl to claim Magnus' opened mouth. Magnus hiccuped into Alec's kiss. An arm wound about the small of Magnus' back. Alec bore him over onto his back on the bed. The come, Magnus' come, on his chest stuck between them. 

The kiss was as devoid of art as Alec's happy smile. Magnus clutched at Alec's shoulders and gasped lightly again and again as Alec kissed his mouth and then his cheek. Alec ran two fingers across the corner of Magnus' left eye, a stroke that framed the socket. Magnus could not close his eyes. He looked at Alec without stopping through every slowing kiss, through the over-warm and sticky touching of their bodies.

Sleepiness creased Alec's next smile. "You're going to kill me," he said gruffly.

Magnus shook his head with dreamlike slowness. He slid his hands from Alec's shoulders to cradle his nape. The kiss he pressed to Alec's seamed mouth made promises.

"No," he said. "Never that. Not you, Alexander."

Alec kissed Magnus' sweat-cooled brow. His lips lingered. Magnus breathed in the smell of Alec, his sweat and his come and the musk. He met Alec's eyes and held them. Remember it. Magnus touched Alec's jaw. He fitted his palm to it.

"Never you," Magnus said, and he closed his eyes and turned up his face for Alec to kiss him again.

The wine glasses stood on the dresser. The victrola had stopped. On the bar where Alec had left it the 1927 de la Romanee-Conti sat exhaling its fragrances and its age. The plants in the common room bobbed their small green heads with the currents of the circulated, heated air. 

Snow moved whitely as ghosts against the windows and in the morning Magnus would set up fortifications to hold the glass sturdy against this storm. After an hour or two the lights in the common room dimmed then went dark. 

Here is a place where the past lived once but has now gone. A murmur, perhaps, some dusted memory of friendly voices raised in laughter. This, an old communion. The snow continued to pile upon the balcony. Across the borough and across the city, and somewhere across the steppes, people who loved one another moved through their lives.

Alec had slung Magnus' scarf on top of the coat rack, and at some point it had slipped to the floor. The snow from their shoes had melted and the water had gone in the air. It was midnight in Brooklyn, the date made January 4th. Without fuss the new year continued along its way.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from the song ["Somewhere in Brooklyn" written by the Smeezingtons and performed by Bruno Mars](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_VcDbPon4s).
> 
> Ruth Etting recorded ["After You've Gone" (written by Creamer and Layton) in March 1927](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzizOMCc65k) for Columbia Records.
> 
> I know that in the books Magnus is born in Indonesia, but as Harry Shum, Jr., is of Chinese descent I decided to take liberties.
> 
> Thank you so, so much to The Filthy Twitter Crew for so many things: to Ashley for first suggesting Alec going dirty nasty on Magnus' hand and Somaya for failing to stop me going wild, to Aja for their months long mission to send me to hell, to Sassy, to Mimi, to the friends I have since dragged down with me. Thanks for encouraging me whenever I open my mouth and start talking about, IDK, boring stuff like Magnus finger-fucking Alec till he cries or whatever.
> 
> I have not yet watched beyond episode seven so please excuse vaguenesses!


End file.
